


Good Days

by yellow_paladin



Series: Yellow Paladin Lotor [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura is chatty when she's flustered, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blind Character, Blind Lotor, Coping, Cuddling & Snuggling, Disability, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hunk (Voltron) is so Pure, Lotor (Voltron) Lives, Mentioned Coran (Voltron), Mentioned Hunk (Voltron), Mentioned Lance (Voltron), Yellow Paladin Lotor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-12-31 22:09:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18322922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellow_paladin/pseuds/yellow_paladin
Summary: Since his recovery, Lotor had good and bad days. Allura had figured this out early, much before even the thought of him in that way had crossed her mind again. On good days, he was a flurry of activity. He'd often be up before the other paladins, working on some project or training with Keith, still the brilliant man she had met. Of course there were still challenges. Names that still eluded him, rooms he seemed to avoid because he was never quite sure where things were. Recently he had even begrudgingly started using the white and yellow cane Hunk had provided him. He was always cautious, the result of his Galra upbringing she supposed, but now he traced his hand on the walls and furniture less and walked confidently a little more more. On good days, she loved him.This had not been a good day.





	Good Days

**Author's Note:**

> AU where lotor was pulled from the Quintessence Field and found by Voltron. Blinded and struggling with the effects of quintessence on his mind, Lotor must earn the trust of Allura and the team if Voltron is to fight Honerva’s influence.

Since his recovery, Lotor had good and bad days. Allura had figured this out early, much before even the thought of him in _that way_ had crossed her mind again. On good days, he was a flurry of activity. He'd often be up before the other paladins, working on some project or training with Keith, still the brilliant man she had met. Of course there were still challenges. Names that still eluded him, rooms he seemed to avoid because he was never quite sure where things were. Recently he had even begrudgingly started using the white and yellow cane Hunk had provided him. He was always cautious, the result of his Galra upbringing she supposed, but now he traced his hand on the walls and furniture less and walked confidently a little more more. On good days, she loved him.

This had not been a good day.

She only caught the end of it, caught up in never ending meetings. They were still months from Earth, and any communication they received from the surviving Coalition was to be their first concern. Differing opinions made any sort of compromise impossible, and these days, any room with the entire team was tense enough without personal problems. _Personal problems_ , she groaned. This kind of thinking had led to it all, and as much as she wanted treaties and rulings to be the answer, it wasn't going to solve all of Voltron's problems. Ignoring personal problems wasn't going to fix the crumbling empire, because ignoring personal problems meant ignoring Lotor...

Her train of thought was interrupted by the voices in the next room.

"Voltron cannot stop searching! We must keep looking for…” He couldn’t find the name “for, for-”

Pidge interrupted his stammering. "We know, we've been searching for Honerva for almost three months now. Voltron's data finding capabilities just aren't ready, we need more time."

"You know nothing! If… we don't find her…, she’ll destroy all we’ve created just as she did with… with..." Allura sighed and moved to the doorway, she could hear the names slipping out of his reach.

“We’ll find her.” Shiro’s voice broke through the tension. “For now, lets just try to relax. This has been a rough few months, it’s been stressful for all of us. Besides, we’re a few days out from the next base. Why don’t we all make lists of things to pick up and we’ll catch up tomorrow.”

A welcome distraction. Allura always wondered how Shiro was able to stay so positive. From what she knew of his past, she would have expected someone more melancholy, to say the least.

“Fine,” Pidge sighed. “I need to find some more parts for our receptors anyway.”

She watched Lotor trace the wall back to where she was standing in the doorway. “Lotor, let me go with you” she tried to stop him, taking his clenched fist into her own before he pulled away. He pushed past her, hands trailing the walls, counting the doors and steps between the Castle's Commons and his own private bunk.

“Let me take you to your room. We can talk about this!” She tried again. Nothing. He was gone. She sighed, hearing the familiar beeping sound emanate from the Castle’s communication system. Another message, another meeting, apparently from a squadron of the Galra army hoping to join the Voltron Coalition. Or size them up. She wondered how long it would take for them to notice their Emperor was absent. He had told her before he refused to look weak in front of the Galra, _a weak Galra is a dead Galra_. But he wasn’t weak, not before they found him and certainly not after, if Lance’s bruises after their spar last week had anything to say about it.

* * *

 

By the time the meeting was over and she could see him again, it was already evening. Not that she would be able to tell if he was awake, she supposed. His room light always seemed to be on at strange times, which made sense if she thought about it. Many times Coran had scolded her for turning them off when she left the room, a habit that she supposed could work the other way too, vision or not.

He sat in bed, a small interlocking puzzle in his hands. She had assumed it was one of Hunks ingenious recovery tools, aiming to help his dexterity with his left hand, but had never asked. He spun the puzzle’s parts individually, trying to find just the right combination. That same thoughtful look as before all this happened. She sighed absentmindedly, and he looked up vaguely in her direction.

“Allura?”

_Quiznak_.

“Lotor, I’m… worried about you.” She paused again. This was probably too much. The silence was unbearable. Why could he always remember her name? The best he could get at Pidge was the “green one”, and that was on good days. She shuffled slowly away from the door. What was she even planning on saying? None of her diplomatic experience helped with this. _Sorry, I made a bad decision, I led the team, and I left you in there and now you’re-_

“You don’t have to leave… Allura.” His gaze fell. “We can still talk”.

She took a seat next to him in his bunk, silently cursing the Castle’s small beds. She felt so far away from him. It had been so long since they had talked alone. “How, how are you doing? I heard that Hunk has been working with you, he said you’ve been making wonderful progress, and I saw you use your cane just the other day.” The words came out faster than she intended. Something about him made her nervous, it always had.

“It’s been okay. I’ve been working with-”, he paused, thinking. “Hunk.” It was true, she knew, he had gotten much better with remembering names, and getting around in general. On one of his good days, she watched him banter with Pidge. Back and forth about the best way to access a Galra database, somewhere between an argument and a conversation. Holding his own. He had rigged the Castle to respond to his voice commands, pulling up pictures and diagrams he couldn’t see to prove his point, and it was amazing. It helped of course, that Pidge didn’t stop to explain anything. She didn’t pause when a metaphor or a joke went over his head, and she didn’t let any half-formed responses slide. She would make a terrible diplomat.

“Allura?” He asked again.

The sound of her name shook her out of her head. He had put the toy away, and started to gently massage his left hand. She grabbed it, almost out of instinct, before pulling away. Before, she would have held it tight against herself, willing any pain away. She still wanted to. Instead, she cleared her throat.

“Does it hurt? Your hand, I mean”

“Sometimes,” he offered. “On hard days.”

He shifted in his spot uncomfortably, brushing the hair out of his face and behind his ear. “Today was… hard, Princess. The names wouldn’t come. It was like before, when I…” His gaze fell past his hands. “When I woke up.” It was too much, she grabbed his hands into her own before she could even realize what she had done.

And before she could react, he held them tightly.

“Allura, do you still love me?”

Allura blinked. For a split second, everything felt like it had before. Back then, on good days she loved him so much that it hurt. On her own good days. When they worked together and he would show her whatever project he spent all day creating, masterfully pulling together Altean and Galran technology. He looked into his work and saw the future of Voltron, of Altea. He looked at her, and she fell in love. But now, it was different. She knew, she felt, too much. She didn’t know where she stood in the Coalition nonetheless their relationship…

She felt him tense in the silence. It was awful, _awkward_ silence like every other time they had made it this far.

“Allura, I don’t expect you to-” he stammered, grasping her shoulders, feeling her hair and trying to match his eyes to her own only to end up gazing ever so slightly to her left. _He’s missed_ , she thought, and quiznak she must have made some subtle sound because he pulled away, covering his face and that smile with his good hand.

He sighed and laid back, exasperated. “We’re never going to figure this out, are we?” He asked, tracing his hand along the ground below his bed, frustration flashing on his face. He couldn’t find something, but she didn’t know what. “I heard the alarm this morning before I left, the… um, the-”

“The Coalition Response” She filled in the name that hadn’t come. “I’m sorry I just-”

“It’s okay, it’s a habit.” He countered softly. “I don’t mind, not from you”. He pulled what he had apparently been searching for under the bed. A small bound book with thick paper, the size of his palm. Sitting back onto his pillow, he tracked his fingers on the pages. It took her a minute to figure out what he was doing, and again some small sound must have given her away, because he put the book down on his lap. She cursed herself silently, wondering why all of her subtleties seemed to melt away when they were together.

He took his time responding. “H...he made it, um, Hunk.” He found her hand and placed it on the pages “You can feel them, the phrases. He said that they do this on… It feels limited, but it’s better than nothing, I suppose.” He let her hold it, brushing his hair out of his face again. The silence came again.

“Will you tell me what it says? What it’s for”

She laid at his side on the small bed, her head next to his. In honesty, she didn’t listen to his response. She slowly took his left hand into her own, watching his eyes light up again while he talked as they did before. He was looking at the future again, she knew. Hunk had made the book to help with metaphors, something that continued to evade him. She knew because she was there, thinking of all the examples she could. _Light of my life and my love, seas of love and smiles, love’s garden and garden keeper_. At the time, she felt like it was all she could do. But now, things had changed, gotten better.

“I plan to rule, I really do Allura.” She came back into the conversation. “When I’m ready. My people need a ruler who can lead them out of war and into peace.” He rambled, like he did before, those days when he was enraptured by his work. “Hunk,” he smiled, the name coming smoothly “he’s been helping a lot and I am grateful, but I need to figure things out for the Empire, and I can’t do that when I miss simple things, so I hoped that, if I could just, dictate-”

He stopped, distracted by a kiss on his cheek.

She surprised herself.

“They’re not simple things”, she smiled softly, kissing him again.

“They are” He sat up, trying his best give her a stern look, only to end up pouting at her shoulder.

This time, there were no diplomatic subtleties to protect her from a fit of giggles. “You’ve missed again, you know that.” She sat up quickly, pushing his jaw and directing his gaze herself. “There. Dictate away, my Emperor, light of my life”. It came out before she knew what she said, and she watched his eyes dim, trying to find the connections. She began to pull away, “I’m sorry, I just, I didn’t mean to say that, I meant to-”

She stopped, finding herself pulled into a silent kiss that started on her lips and found its way to her neck before he settled his cheek on her collar.

“I think, Princess”, he murmured, closing his eyes and holding her hands in his own, “I know that one, but perhaps you could teach me more.”


End file.
